APPLIANCE REPAIR REPLACE

Most of our work was done in the Italian garden, when we weren't pruning or stomping oats etc.

The garden is over 100 years old and the old concrete is breaking down. We worked on the tallest, longest, and most structurally unsound wall, as well as a few smaller sections across the garden.

Basically, the wall is like a mouthful of rotting teeth in need of fillings, or in some cases, an entirely new implant. We would locate the weak concrete (a cavity) and smash, pick, hammer it out. Sometimes it was just a layer of poor finish on the surface, other times the rot went deep and we chipped and chipped piles of disintegrated concrete (essentially dirt and rocks) out of the walls. One stopped when one reached a good, solid core.
This was followed by wire brushing and blasting the walls with a power-washer everywhere we had chipped. (root canal.)
Exceptionally deteriorated sections needed forms built and entirely new concrete poured in. Mostly, however, we covered the chipped, brushed, washed area with a protective mortar, then the masons would put a final smooth layer on.
Mortar had to be kept moist for a few days so hosing and tarping the walls was also part of the process.

I had dreams about chipping, breaking rocks, sides of walls shaling off, piles of disintegrated 100-year old broken down old concrete (now dirt) as well as the hordes of ants that would sometimes come pouring out of an area one had smashed open.

And then we did the other side of the wall.

Alexander sneaking up on Joel with the power washer! Don't worry, the washer engine wasn't running, so the pressure was the equivelant to a lawn sprinkler!